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Affinity's Adobe-rivaling creative suite is now free for six months

202 points by Tomte 2y ago

msephton 2y ago
Curious. Likelihood of them fixing bugs that have been outstanding for 6 years during a 6 month trial? Zero. That's to say that if you try it and don't encounter any of the bugs—great. But if you try it and do encounter the bugs—they're generally unlikely to ever be fixed. In my experience as a user from day one.
ochronus 2y ago
That's a clever move, kudos!
AquinasCoder 2y ago
Does anyone have insight on how this compares these days to Adobe's suite? Seems pretty competitive, but I'm not sure if you're getting 80% of the features for 30% of the cost or 50% of features for 50% of the cost.
- ntlk 2y ago
  Some features are “missing” or don’t work in a similar way. For example, Affinity Designer doesn’t have shape replication tools like Illustrator, manual copy paste is required. You also can’t trace an image to turn it into vector outlines. Just two things off the top of my head that I noticed because I used them extensively in Adobe Illustrator. So if you’re only using a subset of features you’re probably fine, but without testing Affinity’s products for yourself it might be hard to tell if they’re a like for like replacement for you.
  - herpdyderp 2y ago
    It's been a while now but I got Inkscape (free but clunky Illustrator alternative) to do shape replication across a path for me once, and then I copied the result into Affinity Designer. Obviously if you need to do that frequently, it's not gonna work well but I've only had to do that a few times since ditching Adobe.
    - Tagbert 2y ago
      I've also used Inkscape to do the image tracing and export to SVG. I don't like Inkscape for other purposes but it is useful for that.
  - stevenicr 2y ago
    I am thinking I have seen tutorials on tracing to vector, like maybe https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=480dGcU6ce4&pp=ygUVYWZmaW5pdHkgdHJhY2UgdmVjdG9y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=480dGcU6ce4&pp=ygUVYWZmaW5pd... Or perhaps you are describing something else I am unfamiliar with the terminology. I've been going back to several tutorials on youtube for doing things affinity - as it seems to have the capabilities I am used to with the old photoimpact, it's just finding where / how is not the same.
    - jwagenet 2y ago
      I think they are talking about the Image Trace feature, which mostly traces automatically (but requires some hand holding).
- dagmx 2y ago
  It truly depends what you do and need. IMHO, as someone who professionally uses the Adobe products and has licenses to all the Affinity suite, none of the apps compare favorably to the Adobe equivalents other than price and a superior iPad version. They’re all great apps though but they definitely exist in the tier below adobe’s offerings. Which may be fine for most folks but hasn’t been for me, because I literally cannot complete projects in them and I certainly have tried. Affinity Designer lacks many utilities from illustrator like advanced gradient handling, perspective alignment and repetition automation. Inkscape isn’t that far off from Designer imho. Affinity Photo is fine as a photo editing tool but it falls apart for more advanced edits where you need to use brushes and advanced masking tools. Again, perspective tools and more granular referencing tools are just missing or broken. It is a significant step up from Gimp though but I would personally push people to Krita instead. Affinity Publisher is the weakest of the trio. But then again, so is InDesign. These two aren’t too far off but InDesign has better tools around multi page layout and quickly updating templates references. I don’t know of a good OSS equivalent. Again, I think these tools are great for people who value the price over the feature set. Most people don’t need more than they offer. But if you’re a professional, the Adobe products are yet unmatched.
  - ToucanLoucan 2y ago
    > Affinity Photo is fine as a photo editing tool but it falls apart for more advanced edits where you need to use brushes and advanced masking tools. Again, perspective tools and more granular referencing tools are just missing or broken. It is a significant step up from Gimp though but I would personally push people to Krita instead. I want to switch but the total lack of any automated export functionality is a complete deal-breaker. That's like 15 minutes of work per piece foisted back onto me, and like, I just cannot fathom a reason to even have the Layer States feature if you aren't going to use it for this.
    - dagmx 2y ago
      Yeah there are so many walls like that which I hit. I always go to their forum, find that it's been asked a lot and with no resolution. Which is fine, I get it that they are newer and don't have the resources. But in the amount of time I've now wasted trying to do the thing, I just paid for my Adobe license for the month for the relevant app.
- S0und 2y ago
  I'm a hobbyist who has used PS for 20 something years now. My issue with Affinity Photo is that you can use 85% of your PS knowledge and workflow, everything is the same but that last 15% is awfully, unlogically different and will drive you mad. That last 15% feels like it was made by people who do not understand why PS does things the way it does. Meanwhile my statement cannot be true, because Affinity nailed the firat 85%, but just cannot comprehend why they couldn't copy the last 15%.
  - robertoandred 2y ago
    The keyboard actions alone are maddening. Trying to switch tools, exit a text editing mode, change tool properties, all can be very frustrating to do with the keyboard.
  - bonestamp2 2y ago
    This is my experience too. After buying Affinity licenses, I don't want to pay Adobe their monthly rake too, but I do.
  - jay_kyburz 2y ago
    That's the true cost of Photoshop. It's not the subscription. It's the time you spent learning how to do everything. That's why I support Krita, If I'm going to pay that cost, I want to invest it in software that is by the people, for the people.
- sumnole 2y ago
  I've replaced Adobe with Affinity and am mostly satisfied, although in the latest versions I've been experiencing bugs with the renderer (eg artifact lines or the canvas being cut off by one pixel) which introduces some difficulties.
- j45 2y ago
  The best way is to install it and try using it side by side for your use case. For general stuff, it's very serviceable and comparable to Adobe. If there's something very specific it might require confirming if the equivalent features exist in both, and if the procedure is different, what that is. New muscle memory like learning vim, but I know several people who are very happy with it and stick with it. They can always hop on Adobe if they need it here or there.
RobotToaster 2y ago
First time I've realised that affinity is made by the same people who did serif photoplus. How does affinity compare to lightroom?
- ReleaseCandidat 2y ago
  > How does affinity compare to lightroom It doesn't. They have Photoshop, Illustrator and Indesign alternatives.
- data-ottawa 2y ago
  Affinity doesn’t have a comparable program to Lightroom. Affinity Photo does have a development mode, but it’s single file focused and more akin to Photoshop’s raw import tool than an app like Lightroom or Bridge. I think RAW support is much lower than Adobe supports as well, at least with Fuji I’ve had issues and only a few programs handle Fuji compressed RAW. One of Affinity’s strengths is a single compatible file format between all of their apps, but it does lack anything like library support.
  - delfinom 2y ago
    Affinity 2.4 supposedly added more support for RAW including some Fuji cameras.
  - lukasgraf 2y ago
    The big issue with Affinity Photo is that it doesn't support non-destructive editing / a non-linear workflow like Lightroom does. It's not exactly a fair comparison, since AP directly competes with Photoshop, not Lightroom, but that was what made it an immediate non-starter for me when it comes to photography. Affinity Photo starts you in a "Develop Persona" when you open a RAW file, and allows you to develop your RAW file. Before you can use any of the common editing tools, you need to leave that persona by committing your changes. You need to make a choice to bake these RAW adjustments into a "RAW layer (embedded)", "RAW layer (linked)" or a "Pixel layer". It's not very obvious what these are and how they work. Most of the common editing tools then work destructively. Once you use them, you can't go back and change any of the RAW adjustments. There are some very limited tools available that can work non-destructively, but again, it's not very obvious which ones those are. And use of the wrong tool can immediately turn a "RAW layer" into a "Pixel layer" without warning. It's all very confusing, to be honest. It may be a case of the RTFM, but I did so when I tried this a couple months ago, and came to the conclusion that AP simply isn't capable of a non-destructive editing workflow yet, except for a few very basic cases. But the bundle price was worth it for me for Designer and Publisher alone. So I hope in due time they'll launch a fourth product to compete with Lightroom, on photo cataloging, culling and a non-destructive workflow. The current commercial alternatives for Lightroom unfortunately are still lacking, last time I looked at them (Capture One, DxO Photo Lab). And the open source ones (darktable, digiKam) are ... not good. I'm keeping my eye on "Ansel" though (darktable fork by an ex-dev, anger-driven development), the author's rants sum up very wrong what's wrong with darktable, and why its community is so dysfunctional.
treprinum 2y ago
How is the plugin compatibility? Can I use CS6 or CC plugins in Affinity?
- ecjhdnc2025 2y ago
  Yes, mostly. That is, if a Photoshop plugin is well-behaved and doesn't make use of undocumented aspects, it's pretty much going to work. https://peterthenaturephotographer.com/process/affinity-photo-plugins https://peterthenaturephotographer.com/process/affinity-phot... https://affinity.help/photo/en-US.lproj/index.html?page=pages/Filters/plugins.html&title=Using%20Plugins https://affinity.help/photo/en-US.lproj/index.html?page=page...
- hananova 2y ago
  "It depends." Some work, some do not. Just try.
- omnimus 2y ago
  If you mean Photoshop>Photo plugins. Affinity doesnt otherwise have any third party plugins or scripting. Unfortunately.
chasil 2y ago
This is just for the Photo, Designer, and Publisher apps. When will some organization agree to support Gimp, Inkscape, and Libreoffice Writer in the same capacity? I would already prefer the free apps.
- curiousigor 2y ago
  While I'd love to use free tools, these really don't compare to the paid tools like the Affinity suite or Figma for example. Especially in a professional setting as a designer, the tools I use are chosen to make my life easier and enable me to work more efficient, and these really don't yet. From what I see, they aren't build for this setting in mind and cannot keep up with paid tools that have significantly more of a financial backing. The one open-source outlier for me is PenPot, but even they aren't there yet in my opinion, at least not for my needs (and preferences).
  - chasil 2y ago
    At least for inkscape, I do see it in the RHEL appstream repo. A RHEL workstation license will provide basic OS support for it; if you crash it, they might wrangle with the project for you.
karaterobot 2y ago
> This discount, alongside the six-month free trial, is potentially geared at soothing concerns that Affinity would change its pricing model after being acquired by Canva earlier this year. This doesn't sooth my concerns. Why should it, when it's literally them switching to a subscription model. Nothing in the article says otherwise. Do we believe they'll build the infrastructure to support a SaaS, then turn it all off after this 6-month trial? It's not just for fun, they're clearly going to make it the primary way of paying for their products. I bought all the Affinity apps (multiple versions) because I was specifically trying to escape Adobe Creative Cloud. Their software may not be as good as Adobe's, but Affinity's business model provided enough value on its own. I'm making some assumptions here, but come on, we know how this story usually plays out. Unless I'm wrong, I think this is probably a bad idea for users like me.
- SubiculumCode 2y ago
  I really hope not. Its also the reason why I purchased their software.
- data-ottawa 2y ago
  For what it’s worth, the current version and version one were both designed in a way that they could be switched to a subscription model. When you make purchases from their store they’re available within the app based on your account, if you sign out you’ll lose access to them. I know with V1 you could manually download your assets, I’m not sure what the status is for V2 on that. I share your scepticism since the Canva acquisition.
  - karaterobot 2y ago
    Are you referring to some sort of asset marketplace with in-app purchases, or something like that? If so, I've never used it. I can say that you don't need to be logged in to use Affinity Photo, Designer, or Publisher: I don't even have an Affinity account, let alone do I need to log in to use the software. My recollection of buying their products is: you pay them over the web, they send an email with an activation code, you paste the code into the app, and that's it.
ChrisArchitect 2y ago
Official release: https://affinity.serif.com/en-us/press/newsroom/try-affinity-designer-photo-and-publisher-free-for-six-months/ https://affinity.serif.com/en-us/press/newsroom/try-affinity... (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40906031 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40906031)
kmfrk 2y ago
They did a similar trial during covid which was what got me to try them out. Love their tools, except some of the magic tools aren't available in Designer and require Photo, which can be annoying for people who prefer just one. Some excellent official tutorials, too: https://youtu.be/6wfeMGwcF0c https://youtu.be/6wfeMGwcF0c
- omnimus 2y ago
  If you buy the pack of all three then through publisher you can instantly switch between them basically making it one software. That alone is so much ahead of Adobe.
- Tagbert 2y ago
  True, though one of the strengths of Affinity is that their files work in both Photo and Designer. You can open in each app and use a tool and then switch back.
rlad 2y ago
I bought Affinity and have tried to use it but really don’t find it anything like equivalent to the Adobe products unfortunately. For color correction of photographs, PhotoPea does a much better job than Affinity I feel. After wasting 15 or 30 minutes trying to get Affinity to work for a photo touchup and color correction, I give up and use PhotoPea.
- ecjhdnc2025 2y ago
  Affinity has really sophisticated colour editing controls. For example you can apply adjustment layers and then use a blend curve (not just blend ranges) to moderate it. So if you want warmer shadows, it's as easy as using a colour temperature adjustment to warm up your image and then adjusting the curve so that it doesn't apply where you don't want it. And you have cross-model curves: you can apply Lab curves to RGB model images without converting. It has a Capture-One-style HSL wheel. It supports LUTs (and LUT inference!) I can think of some things Photoshop does that Affinity Photo does not, but I've been using it nine years now for my photography and web work (along with Designer). I think for almost every normal Photoshop user[0] there's no reason not to use Affinity Photo instead. [0] Unless you're particularly wedded to Lightroom, for which there is no Affinity alternative.
theobr 2y ago
I've been using Affinity's suite exclusively for about 4 years now and I haven't looked back once. Briefly tried Photoshop again for the generative AI stuff and it was slow, unreliable and crashed multiple times. HIGHLY recommend giving Affinity a shot, I've edited thousands of images with Photo and I can't imagine using anything else now.
- datavirtue 2y ago
  I did not know about Affinity. I just signed up and was downloading files in less than a minute. In two minutes I was sitting in front of Photo 2, ready to work.
- lovegrenoble 2y ago
  I confirm, best soft ever!
- aleph_minus_one 2y ago
  > I've been using Affinity's suite exclusively for about 4 years now and I haven't looked back once. Unluckily, Affinity Designer still has no tool for tracing images (a functionality that would be really helpful for the tasks that I use Affinity Designer for). :-( UPDATE: Also halftone effects for fillings require quite some hacks in Affinity Designer.
  - nikkwong 2y ago
    It also has no curvature tool, which is a huge deal breaker for many vector artists. I have been making a stink about this online across many platforms for years but the team has shown no intention to adopt it.
  - Tagbert 2y ago
    I just use Inkscape for tracing and then export to SVG. I can't use Inkscape for anything else but it does provide that function.
  - WillAdams 2y ago
    A free option for tracing is: https://www.visioncortex.org/vtracer/ https://www.visioncortex.org/vtracer/
Arn_Thor 2y ago
This has heightened my concerns, not allayed them. They have said perpetual licenses will always be an option but 1) I don’t trust corporate promises and 2) they could easily just price that out of reach to push people onto a subscription model. A six-month trial is a not a “try us” timeline, it is “make us indispensable” timeline. That’s a big up front loss of revenue for them which I only see them making back if they go for a higher-pressure pricing model.
- j45 2y ago
  I know some people who bought the last time they had a 50% off sale recently. $100 or so for the full suite. Great for the few times a year you need to use a tool. Even though I'm more on the tech side, I spent enough time in photoshop/etc around web development at one point that it's handy to have. This would cost more in a month or two on a subscription. I don't anticipate the current version licensing being revoked. Future versions might add a subscription, but my feeling is if the TAM for them is all of Adobe's subscription clients, there's probably a lot more customers they can absorb.
- carlosjobim 2y ago
  Your concerns for what? They're not going to send people to your house to uninstall the software.
  - Springtime 2y ago
    To play along, activation is still a potential issue. Affinity v1 suite had offline activation so one can always activate on any new system/install, while v2 (for its non-volume license at least), which since brought along an optional subscription model, switched to online activation. Looking at Adobe multiple versions have phased out online activation support over the years, with a not uncommon complaint being trouble installing and using purchases subsequently. As with anything tied to server checks one has to trust it will either continue working or workarounds be provided. IIRC Clip Studio Paint switched their activation method in the last few years as well.
- ezfe 2y ago
mythz 2y ago
Not a heavy graphic design user so would never consider an Adobe subscription, switched to Affinity for its low cost perpetual pricing which has been a great substitute for my needs, though still use Paint .NET for small edits. Most of the functionality is there but it does a few things differently to Photoshop, fortunately there's a lot of resources in their docs, forums and YouTube videos to learn how it's done in Affinity.
rchaud 2y ago
I bought the Affinity suite during 2020 when I was exploring some hobbyist graphic design stuff. I still use it frequently. I wonder what the goal is for making it free. Now that they're owned by Canva, are they slowly opening the door toward a freemium SaaS business model?
- rubslopes 2y ago
  Occam' razor: Adobe users are generally very rooted in the Adobe ecosystem. Changing is costly. A generous trial period might make some of them try Affinity.
VincentEvans 2y ago
Hoping that somebody takes on Sketchup, Autocad etc with a similar approach to licensing. Subscriptions suck for tools you use occasionally. (Sketchup used to be like that until it was purchased by Tre-something).
- vvpan 2y ago
  I know the workflow is quiet different but Rhino is popular, for example, with architecture crowd and their licenses are perpetual.
  - VincentEvans 2y ago
    True, albeit the associated cost is firmly not in the “occasional use hobbyist” category. E.g. my wife using youtube tutorials to teach herself digital drafting to plan our kitchen remodel (with actual dimensions).
    - Tagbert 2y ago
      Yes, I would love to have a 3D CAD problem for modeling a new deck or a raise garden bed but most of the tools are just way out of budget for that.
Etheryte 2y ago
Extremely unfortunate that the article is littered with countless links, but none of them lead to the actual product page. Sure, I can guess what it is or look it up on search, but if you do a marketing stint, surely you'd want to link to the actual thing you're talking about.
- anigbrowl 2y ago
  Incorrect; the very first link ('the offer') takes you to Affinity's website. This choice makes sense since the offer applies to all 3 of their products, which you can investigate further from the top menu. I don't see how it could be easier.
  - Etheryte 2y ago
    Yeah no, the first link takes me to a random press release on their corporate website. Unless I already know that this corporate press release site is also the site where the product info is, I won't know to look for it — many modern products have the corporate entity and the actual product separate. It would literally be easier to use feeling lucky on Google. It's deeply wishful thinking that anyone would go and explore the website for your corporate entity just because you're trying to sell something.
    - anigbrowl 2y ago
      I have never gone to their website (singular) before and I figured all this out by simply looking at the page for a few seconds. These objections seem ridiculous to me.
Saris 2y ago
I'm a little confused about Affinity Photo, the name implies it's supposed to be an equivalent to Lightroom, but the program functions more like Photoshop. Is there a file browser with tagging, colors, flags, etc.. Or am I expected to manually open every RAW file as I go and use something else to manage them? I did some test edits to a RAW file, closed it, and now looking at it again the history is blank and it seems to have reverted the changes. It looks like I have to destructively save the changes to the RAW file directly?
- parl_match 2y ago
  Affinity's suite isn't as "complete" as Adobe's. Much smaller company with much smaller product suite. They don't have cataloguing or photo management equivalent. But as for ND RAW editing.... yeah. I've been using Affinity for a while, and they have it, but it's not very obvious. FWIW they have a non-destructive editor function via the Develop Persona toolkit, it's not something that opens up by default. There are docs available on their site how to use it properly. I do think it's a miss to not bring that more forward, when opening a RAW, hopefully they'll see this feedback.
- nox101 2y ago
  Why do you think the name implies it's similar to Lightroom instead of Photoshop? I'd expect a product named Affinity Light to be similar to Lightroom.
  - Saris 2y ago
    Not sure to be honest, I guess they talk about it as a photo editing suite, I mean their tagline is "The photo editor you’ve been dreaming of" which makes me think of it as an alternative to Lightroom. I wouldn't call photoshop much of a photo editor as it was never very good at it either with the RAW workflow, more of a generalized drawing/editing tool I guess?
- Tagbert 2y ago
  It is definitely more like Photoshop than Lightroom. You'll need to look elsewhere if you need file management.
parl_match 2y ago
Adobe vs Affinity: Is Photoshop better than Photo? Yes, but not by much. Is Illustrator better than Design? Yes, but not by much. Is there an annoying learning curve? Yes, but not by much. I've put the investment into becoming proficient in Affinity and there's no looking back for me. Adobe's pricing, feature roadmap, and general performance are not even close to being worth 10x the price. If Adobe's suite was 2x, I probably wouldn't have switched, but at this point they're just squeezing small creators like myself. And tbh now that I'm proficient with the Affinity UX, I doubt I'd switch back. It's really good! And in some ways, Affinity's tools can even be superior (performance, ui smoothness, and even how vector art works). If you're living with a pirated version of CS5 or 6, it's worth coming in from the cold and trying Affinity.
- choppaface 2y ago
  Is Adobe only 10x more expensive? Adobe is subscription-only so it seems to be only 10x for the first 5 years and then it’s indefinitely more expensive. Adobe’s customer support is also extremely poor. They ask you for detailed OS info when not only does Creative Cloud scrape that but so does their ad network.
- DoneWithAllThat 2y ago
  I use Designer almost daily and I’m stunned by how good it is. I have zero interest in ever going back to Illustrator. I’m sure there’s pro requirements that only Illustrator has but I’ve not encountered them. For the price it’s simply amazing.
- dataflow 2y ago
  > Is Photoshop better than Photo? Yes, but not by much. Everyone keeps repeating this meme every 2 months or so on HN and I have to keep coming back to point out that Affinity's lack of support for Photoshop's generated XMP sidecar files is on its own a dealbreaker for photographers that have those files. (Then as soon as I say this everyone here jumps to Affinity's defense. I'm not trying to attack Affinity or something. I'm just pointing out the reality users face is very different from the meme that goes around on HN. Defending Affinity all day long won't solve the problems users face.)
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grumple 2y ago
Just a week after I paid for the suite! But it's been useful for my (very much non-artist) purposes so far, though like all photo editing software I've ever touched, it has a TON of features and is pretty overwhelming.
zyberzero 2y ago
I have been looking for Affinity Photo for a while - but can someone recommend a good alternative to lightroom? Perhaps something that integrate with Affinity reasonable well? For mac. Plus points for linux support. Even more plus points if it can easily share the library between different devices.
- piva00 2y ago
  I've moved to Capture One years ago and have been extremely happy with it. Even better that RAW processing for my Fuji cameras is better on C1 than Lightroom.
tacker2000 2y ago
Didnt know about this, and I have started to loathe Adobe due to their licensing model. I will check Photo out!
Fr0styMatt88 2y ago
I loved the Affinity Suite, but it’s such a shame that Linux isn’t supported or that it isn’t provided in a Wine-friendly distributable (a regular installer executable rather than a Windows App Store package).
xyst 2y ago
I would buy it just because it’s not Adobe.
neom 2y ago
Unrelated but have any of you web software folks tried the latest dreamweaver? I'm old af and I used to love DW in the 90s and actually it's part of why I even know how to code(ish), I used it to teach myself (god bless you kevin lynch)...! anyway, I saw they still update it so I downloaded it just to see what it's like..Seems like they've really developed it well into a front end focused IDE, I can't say if it's good or not, but just from clicking around it felt pretty good... Thought I'd mention it. :)
null0pointer 2y ago
I really like Affinity, especially their buy it once pricing model, and I use Affinity Photo for all my photo editing. However, I was very disappointed to learn they were recently acquired by Canva, a company that is blatantly following the VC growth playbook. So I fear that sooner or later Affinity will fall victim to enshittification. It will either become exactly like Adobe is today or it will be sacrificed on the altar of ROI.
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mahgnous 2y ago
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unixhero 2y ago
Is Affinity draw better than Krita???
TheMagicHorsey 2y ago
Coming from Adobe Lightroom, I found Affinity Photo to be unusable. But I eventually switched from shooting RAW to shooting JPG, and now I just use files straight out of my Fuji cameras. As a busy parent I can't be bothered to edit anymore. I just shoot and post or shoot and print.
abdusco 2y ago
Does Affinity Photo have photo library management support like Lightroom? e.g. pick/reject, tagging, rating etc.
- simulo 2y ago
  No, afaic it does not.

202 points by Tomte 2y ago

Curious. Likelihood of them fixing bugs that have been outstanding for 6 years during a 6 month trial? Zero. That's to say that if you try it and don't encounter any of the bugs—great. But if you try it and do encounter the bugs—they're generally unlikely to ever be fixed. In my experience as a user from day one.

ochronus 2y ago

That's a clever move, kudos!

AquinasCoder 2y ago

Does anyone have insight on how this compares these days to Adobe's suite? Seems pretty competitive, but I'm not sure if you're getting 80% of the features for 30% of the cost or 50% of features for 50% of the cost.

ntlk 2y ago
Some features are “missing” or don’t work in a similar way. For example, Affinity Designer doesn’t have shape replication tools like Illustrator, manual copy paste is required. You also can’t trace an image to turn it into vector outlines. Just two things off the top of my head that I noticed because I used them extensively in Adobe Illustrator. So if you’re only using a subset of features you’re probably fine, but without testing Affinity’s products for yourself it might be hard to tell if they’re a like for like replacement for you.
- herpdyderp 2y ago
  It's been a while now but I got Inkscape (free but clunky Illustrator alternative) to do shape replication across a path for me once, and then I copied the result into Affinity Designer. Obviously if you need to do that frequently, it's not gonna work well but I've only had to do that a few times since ditching Adobe.
  - Tagbert 2y ago
    I've also used Inkscape to do the image tracing and export to SVG. I don't like Inkscape for other purposes but it is useful for that.
- stevenicr 2y ago
  I am thinking I have seen tutorials on tracing to vector, like maybe https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=480dGcU6ce4&pp=ygUVYWZmaW5pdHkgdHJhY2UgdmVjdG9y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=480dGcU6ce4&pp=ygUVYWZmaW5pd... Or perhaps you are describing something else I am unfamiliar with the terminology. I've been going back to several tutorials on youtube for doing things affinity - as it seems to have the capabilities I am used to with the old photoimpact, it's just finding where / how is not the same.
  - jwagenet 2y ago
    I think they are talking about the Image Trace feature, which mostly traces automatically (but requires some hand holding).
dagmx 2y ago
It truly depends what you do and need. IMHO, as someone who professionally uses the Adobe products and has licenses to all the Affinity suite, none of the apps compare favorably to the Adobe equivalents other than price and a superior iPad version. They’re all great apps though but they definitely exist in the tier below adobe’s offerings. Which may be fine for most folks but hasn’t been for me, because I literally cannot complete projects in them and I certainly have tried. Affinity Designer lacks many utilities from illustrator like advanced gradient handling, perspective alignment and repetition automation. Inkscape isn’t that far off from Designer imho. Affinity Photo is fine as a photo editing tool but it falls apart for more advanced edits where you need to use brushes and advanced masking tools. Again, perspective tools and more granular referencing tools are just missing or broken. It is a significant step up from Gimp though but I would personally push people to Krita instead. Affinity Publisher is the weakest of the trio. But then again, so is InDesign. These two aren’t too far off but InDesign has better tools around multi page layout and quickly updating templates references. I don’t know of a good OSS equivalent. Again, I think these tools are great for people who value the price over the feature set. Most people don’t need more than they offer. But if you’re a professional, the Adobe products are yet unmatched.
- ToucanLoucan 2y ago
  > Affinity Photo is fine as a photo editing tool but it falls apart for more advanced edits where you need to use brushes and advanced masking tools. Again, perspective tools and more granular referencing tools are just missing or broken. It is a significant step up from Gimp though but I would personally push people to Krita instead. I want to switch but the total lack of any automated export functionality is a complete deal-breaker. That's like 15 minutes of work per piece foisted back onto me, and like, I just cannot fathom a reason to even have the Layer States feature if you aren't going to use it for this.
  - dagmx 2y ago
    Yeah there are so many walls like that which I hit. I always go to their forum, find that it's been asked a lot and with no resolution. Which is fine, I get it that they are newer and don't have the resources. But in the amount of time I've now wasted trying to do the thing, I just paid for my Adobe license for the month for the relevant app.
S0und 2y ago
I'm a hobbyist who has used PS for 20 something years now. My issue with Affinity Photo is that you can use 85% of your PS knowledge and workflow, everything is the same but that last 15% is awfully, unlogically different and will drive you mad. That last 15% feels like it was made by people who do not understand why PS does things the way it does. Meanwhile my statement cannot be true, because Affinity nailed the firat 85%, but just cannot comprehend why they couldn't copy the last 15%.
- robertoandred 2y ago
  The keyboard actions alone are maddening. Trying to switch tools, exit a text editing mode, change tool properties, all can be very frustrating to do with the keyboard.
- bonestamp2 2y ago
  This is my experience too. After buying Affinity licenses, I don't want to pay Adobe their monthly rake too, but I do.
- jay_kyburz 2y ago
  That's the true cost of Photoshop. It's not the subscription. It's the time you spent learning how to do everything. That's why I support Krita, If I'm going to pay that cost, I want to invest it in software that is by the people, for the people.
sumnole 2y ago
I've replaced Adobe with Affinity and am mostly satisfied, although in the latest versions I've been experiencing bugs with the renderer (eg artifact lines or the canvas being cut off by one pixel) which introduces some difficulties.
j45 2y ago
The best way is to install it and try using it side by side for your use case. For general stuff, it's very serviceable and comparable to Adobe. If there's something very specific it might require confirming if the equivalent features exist in both, and if the procedure is different, what that is. New muscle memory like learning vim, but I know several people who are very happy with it and stick with it. They can always hop on Adobe if they need it here or there.

RobotToaster 2y ago

First time I've realised that affinity is made by the same people who did serif photoplus. How does affinity compare to lightroom?

ReleaseCandidat 2y ago
> How does affinity compare to lightroom It doesn't. They have Photoshop, Illustrator and Indesign alternatives.
data-ottawa 2y ago
Affinity doesn’t have a comparable program to Lightroom. Affinity Photo does have a development mode, but it’s single file focused and more akin to Photoshop’s raw import tool than an app like Lightroom or Bridge. I think RAW support is much lower than Adobe supports as well, at least with Fuji I’ve had issues and only a few programs handle Fuji compressed RAW. One of Affinity’s strengths is a single compatible file format between all of their apps, but it does lack anything like library support.
- delfinom 2y ago
  Affinity 2.4 supposedly added more support for RAW including some Fuji cameras.
- lukasgraf 2y ago
  The big issue with Affinity Photo is that it doesn't support non-destructive editing / a non-linear workflow like Lightroom does. It's not exactly a fair comparison, since AP directly competes with Photoshop, not Lightroom, but that was what made it an immediate non-starter for me when it comes to photography. Affinity Photo starts you in a "Develop Persona" when you open a RAW file, and allows you to develop your RAW file. Before you can use any of the common editing tools, you need to leave that persona by committing your changes. You need to make a choice to bake these RAW adjustments into a "RAW layer (embedded)", "RAW layer (linked)" or a "Pixel layer". It's not very obvious what these are and how they work. Most of the common editing tools then work destructively. Once you use them, you can't go back and change any of the RAW adjustments. There are some very limited tools available that can work non-destructively, but again, it's not very obvious which ones those are. And use of the wrong tool can immediately turn a "RAW layer" into a "Pixel layer" without warning. It's all very confusing, to be honest. It may be a case of the RTFM, but I did so when I tried this a couple months ago, and came to the conclusion that AP simply isn't capable of a non-destructive editing workflow yet, except for a few very basic cases. But the bundle price was worth it for me for Designer and Publisher alone. So I hope in due time they'll launch a fourth product to compete with Lightroom, on photo cataloging, culling and a non-destructive workflow. The current commercial alternatives for Lightroom unfortunately are still lacking, last time I looked at them (Capture One, DxO Photo Lab). And the open source ones (darktable, digiKam) are ... not good. I'm keeping my eye on "Ansel" though (darktable fork by an ex-dev, anger-driven development), the author's rants sum up very wrong what's wrong with darktable, and why its community is so dysfunctional.

treprinum 2y ago

How is the plugin compatibility? Can I use CS6 or CC plugins in Affinity?

ecjhdnc2025 2y ago
Yes, mostly. That is, if a Photoshop plugin is well-behaved and doesn't make use of undocumented aspects, it's pretty much going to work. https://peterthenaturephotographer.com/process/affinity-photo-plugins https://peterthenaturephotographer.com/process/affinity-phot... https://affinity.help/photo/en-US.lproj/index.html?page=pages/Filters/plugins.html&title=Using%20Plugins https://affinity.help/photo/en-US.lproj/index.html?page=page...
hananova 2y ago
"It depends." Some work, some do not. Just try.
omnimus 2y ago
If you mean Photoshop>Photo plugins. Affinity doesnt otherwise have any third party plugins or scripting. Unfortunately.

chasil 2y ago

This is just for the Photo, Designer, and Publisher apps. When will some organization agree to support Gimp, Inkscape, and Libreoffice Writer in the same capacity? I would already prefer the free apps.

curiousigor 2y ago
While I'd love to use free tools, these really don't compare to the paid tools like the Affinity suite or Figma for example. Especially in a professional setting as a designer, the tools I use are chosen to make my life easier and enable me to work more efficient, and these really don't yet. From what I see, they aren't build for this setting in mind and cannot keep up with paid tools that have significantly more of a financial backing. The one open-source outlier for me is PenPot, but even they aren't there yet in my opinion, at least not for my needs (and preferences).
- chasil 2y ago
  At least for inkscape, I do see it in the RHEL appstream repo. A RHEL workstation license will provide basic OS support for it; if you crash it, they might wrangle with the project for you.

karaterobot 2y ago

> This discount, alongside the six-month free trial, is potentially geared at soothing concerns that Affinity would change its pricing model after being acquired by Canva earlier this year. This doesn't sooth my concerns. Why should it, when it's literally them switching to a subscription model. Nothing in the article says otherwise. Do we believe they'll build the infrastructure to support a SaaS, then turn it all off after this 6-month trial? It's not just for fun, they're clearly going to make it the primary way of paying for their products. I bought all the Affinity apps (multiple versions) because I was specifically trying to escape Adobe Creative Cloud. Their software may not be as good as Adobe's, but Affinity's business model provided enough value on its own. I'm making some assumptions here, but come on, we know how this story usually plays out. Unless I'm wrong, I think this is probably a bad idea for users like me.

SubiculumCode 2y ago
I really hope not. Its also the reason why I purchased their software.
data-ottawa 2y ago
For what it’s worth, the current version and version one were both designed in a way that they could be switched to a subscription model. When you make purchases from their store they’re available within the app based on your account, if you sign out you’ll lose access to them. I know with V1 you could manually download your assets, I’m not sure what the status is for V2 on that. I share your scepticism since the Canva acquisition.
- karaterobot 2y ago
  Are you referring to some sort of asset marketplace with in-app purchases, or something like that? If so, I've never used it. I can say that you don't need to be logged in to use Affinity Photo, Designer, or Publisher: I don't even have an Affinity account, let alone do I need to log in to use the software. My recollection of buying their products is: you pay them over the web, they send an email with an activation code, you paste the code into the app, and that's it.

ChrisArchitect 2y ago

Official release: https://affinity.serif.com/en-us/press/newsroom/try-affinity-designer-photo-and-publisher-free-for-six-months/ https://affinity.serif.com/en-us/press/newsroom/try-affinity... (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40906031 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40906031)

kmfrk 2y ago

They did a similar trial during covid which was what got me to try them out. Love their tools, except some of the magic tools aren't available in Designer and require Photo, which can be annoying for people who prefer just one. Some excellent official tutorials, too: https://youtu.be/6wfeMGwcF0c https://youtu.be/6wfeMGwcF0c

omnimus 2y ago
If you buy the pack of all three then through publisher you can instantly switch between them basically making it one software. That alone is so much ahead of Adobe.
Tagbert 2y ago
True, though one of the strengths of Affinity is that their files work in both Photo and Designer. You can open in each app and use a tool and then switch back.

rlad 2y ago

I bought Affinity and have tried to use it but really don’t find it anything like equivalent to the Adobe products unfortunately. For color correction of photographs, PhotoPea does a much better job than Affinity I feel. After wasting 15 or 30 minutes trying to get Affinity to work for a photo touchup and color correction, I give up and use PhotoPea.

ecjhdnc2025 2y ago
Affinity has really sophisticated colour editing controls. For example you can apply adjustment layers and then use a blend curve (not just blend ranges) to moderate it. So if you want warmer shadows, it's as easy as using a colour temperature adjustment to warm up your image and then adjusting the curve so that it doesn't apply where you don't want it. And you have cross-model curves: you can apply Lab curves to RGB model images without converting. It has a Capture-One-style HSL wheel. It supports LUTs (and LUT inference!) I can think of some things Photoshop does that Affinity Photo does not, but I've been using it nine years now for my photography and web work (along with Designer). I think for almost every normal Photoshop user[0] there's no reason not to use Affinity Photo instead. [0] Unless you're particularly wedded to Lightroom, for which there is no Affinity alternative.

theobr 2y ago

I've been using Affinity's suite exclusively for about 4 years now and I haven't looked back once. Briefly tried Photoshop again for the generative AI stuff and it was slow, unreliable and crashed multiple times. HIGHLY recommend giving Affinity a shot, I've edited thousands of images with Photo and I can't imagine using anything else now.

datavirtue 2y ago
I did not know about Affinity. I just signed up and was downloading files in less than a minute. In two minutes I was sitting in front of Photo 2, ready to work.
lovegrenoble 2y ago
I confirm, best soft ever!
aleph_minus_one 2y ago
> I've been using Affinity's suite exclusively for about 4 years now and I haven't looked back once. Unluckily, Affinity Designer still has no tool for tracing images (a functionality that would be really helpful for the tasks that I use Affinity Designer for). :-( UPDATE: Also halftone effects for fillings require quite some hacks in Affinity Designer.
- nikkwong 2y ago
  It also has no curvature tool, which is a huge deal breaker for many vector artists. I have been making a stink about this online across many platforms for years but the team has shown no intention to adopt it.
- Tagbert 2y ago
  I just use Inkscape for tracing and then export to SVG. I can't use Inkscape for anything else but it does provide that function.
- WillAdams 2y ago
  A free option for tracing is: https://www.visioncortex.org/vtracer/ https://www.visioncortex.org/vtracer/

Arn_Thor 2y ago

This has heightened my concerns, not allayed them. They have said perpetual licenses will always be an option but 1) I don’t trust corporate promises and 2) they could easily just price that out of reach to push people onto a subscription model. A six-month trial is a not a “try us” timeline, it is “make us indispensable” timeline. That’s a big up front loss of revenue for them which I only see them making back if they go for a higher-pressure pricing model.

j45 2y ago
I know some people who bought the last time they had a 50% off sale recently. $100 or so for the full suite. Great for the few times a year you need to use a tool. Even though I'm more on the tech side, I spent enough time in photoshop/etc around web development at one point that it's handy to have. This would cost more in a month or two on a subscription. I don't anticipate the current version licensing being revoked. Future versions might add a subscription, but my feeling is if the TAM for them is all of Adobe's subscription clients, there's probably a lot more customers they can absorb.
carlosjobim 2y ago
Your concerns for what? They're not going to send people to your house to uninstall the software.
- Springtime 2y ago
  To play along, activation is still a potential issue. Affinity v1 suite had offline activation so one can always activate on any new system/install, while v2 (for its non-volume license at least), which since brought along an optional subscription model, switched to online activation. Looking at Adobe multiple versions have phased out online activation support over the years, with a not uncommon complaint being trouble installing and using purchases subsequently. As with anything tied to server checks one has to trust it will either continue working or workarounds be provided. IIRC Clip Studio Paint switched their activation method in the last few years as well.
ezfe 2y ago

mythz 2y ago

Not a heavy graphic design user so would never consider an Adobe subscription, switched to Affinity for its low cost perpetual pricing which has been a great substitute for my needs, though still use Paint .NET for small edits. Most of the functionality is there but it does a few things differently to Photoshop, fortunately there's a lot of resources in their docs, forums and YouTube videos to learn how it's done in Affinity.

rchaud 2y ago

I bought the Affinity suite during 2020 when I was exploring some hobbyist graphic design stuff. I still use it frequently. I wonder what the goal is for making it free. Now that they're owned by Canva, are they slowly opening the door toward a freemium SaaS business model?

rubslopes 2y ago
Occam' razor: Adobe users are generally very rooted in the Adobe ecosystem. Changing is costly. A generous trial period might make some of them try Affinity.

VincentEvans 2y ago

Hoping that somebody takes on Sketchup, Autocad etc with a similar approach to licensing. Subscriptions suck for tools you use occasionally. (Sketchup used to be like that until it was purchased by Tre-something).

vvpan 2y ago
I know the workflow is quiet different but Rhino is popular, for example, with architecture crowd and their licenses are perpetual.
- VincentEvans 2y ago
  True, albeit the associated cost is firmly not in the “occasional use hobbyist” category. E.g. my wife using youtube tutorials to teach herself digital drafting to plan our kitchen remodel (with actual dimensions).
  - Tagbert 2y ago
    Yes, I would love to have a 3D CAD problem for modeling a new deck or a raise garden bed but most of the tools are just way out of budget for that.

Etheryte 2y ago

Extremely unfortunate that the article is littered with countless links, but none of them lead to the actual product page. Sure, I can guess what it is or look it up on search, but if you do a marketing stint, surely you'd want to link to the actual thing you're talking about.

anigbrowl 2y ago
Incorrect; the very first link ('the offer') takes you to Affinity's website. This choice makes sense since the offer applies to all 3 of their products, which you can investigate further from the top menu. I don't see how it could be easier.
- Etheryte 2y ago
  Yeah no, the first link takes me to a random press release on their corporate website. Unless I already know that this corporate press release site is also the site where the product info is, I won't know to look for it — many modern products have the corporate entity and the actual product separate. It would literally be easier to use feeling lucky on Google. It's deeply wishful thinking that anyone would go and explore the website for your corporate entity just because you're trying to sell something.
  - anigbrowl 2y ago
    I have never gone to their website (singular) before and I figured all this out by simply looking at the page for a few seconds. These objections seem ridiculous to me.

Saris 2y ago

I'm a little confused about Affinity Photo, the name implies it's supposed to be an equivalent to Lightroom, but the program functions more like Photoshop. Is there a file browser with tagging, colors, flags, etc.. Or am I expected to manually open every RAW file as I go and use something else to manage them? I did some test edits to a RAW file, closed it, and now looking at it again the history is blank and it seems to have reverted the changes. It looks like I have to destructively save the changes to the RAW file directly?

parl_match 2y ago
Affinity's suite isn't as "complete" as Adobe's. Much smaller company with much smaller product suite. They don't have cataloguing or photo management equivalent. But as for ND RAW editing.... yeah. I've been using Affinity for a while, and they have it, but it's not very obvious. FWIW they have a non-destructive editor function via the Develop Persona toolkit, it's not something that opens up by default. There are docs available on their site how to use it properly. I do think it's a miss to not bring that more forward, when opening a RAW, hopefully they'll see this feedback.
nox101 2y ago
Why do you think the name implies it's similar to Lightroom instead of Photoshop? I'd expect a product named Affinity Light to be similar to Lightroom.
- Saris 2y ago
  Not sure to be honest, I guess they talk about it as a photo editing suite, I mean their tagline is "The photo editor you’ve been dreaming of" which makes me think of it as an alternative to Lightroom. I wouldn't call photoshop much of a photo editor as it was never very good at it either with the RAW workflow, more of a generalized drawing/editing tool I guess?
Tagbert 2y ago
It is definitely more like Photoshop than Lightroom. You'll need to look elsewhere if you need file management.

parl_match 2y ago

Adobe vs Affinity: Is Photoshop better than Photo? Yes, but not by much. Is Illustrator better than Design? Yes, but not by much. Is there an annoying learning curve? Yes, but not by much. I've put the investment into becoming proficient in Affinity and there's no looking back for me. Adobe's pricing, feature roadmap, and general performance are not even close to being worth 10x the price. If Adobe's suite was 2x, I probably wouldn't have switched, but at this point they're just squeezing small creators like myself. And tbh now that I'm proficient with the Affinity UX, I doubt I'd switch back. It's really good! And in some ways, Affinity's tools can even be superior (performance, ui smoothness, and even how vector art works). If you're living with a pirated version of CS5 or 6, it's worth coming in from the cold and trying Affinity.

choppaface 2y ago
Is Adobe only 10x more expensive? Adobe is subscription-only so it seems to be only 10x for the first 5 years and then it’s indefinitely more expensive. Adobe’s customer support is also extremely poor. They ask you for detailed OS info when not only does Creative Cloud scrape that but so does their ad network.
DoneWithAllThat 2y ago
I use Designer almost daily and I’m stunned by how good it is. I have zero interest in ever going back to Illustrator. I’m sure there’s pro requirements that only Illustrator has but I’ve not encountered them. For the price it’s simply amazing.
dataflow 2y ago
> Is Photoshop better than Photo? Yes, but not by much. Everyone keeps repeating this meme every 2 months or so on HN and I have to keep coming back to point out that Affinity's lack of support for Photoshop's generated XMP sidecar files is on its own a dealbreaker for photographers that have those files. (Then as soon as I say this everyone here jumps to Affinity's defense. I'm not trying to attack Affinity or something. I'm just pointing out the reality users face is very different from the meme that goes around on HN. Defending Affinity all day long won't solve the problems users face.)

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grumple 2y ago

Just a week after I paid for the suite! But it's been useful for my (very much non-artist) purposes so far, though like all photo editing software I've ever touched, it has a TON of features and is pretty overwhelming.

zyberzero 2y ago

I have been looking for Affinity Photo for a while - but can someone recommend a good alternative to lightroom? Perhaps something that integrate with Affinity reasonable well? For mac. Plus points for linux support. Even more plus points if it can easily share the library between different devices.

piva00 2y ago
I've moved to Capture One years ago and have been extremely happy with it. Even better that RAW processing for my Fuji cameras is better on C1 than Lightroom.

tacker2000 2y ago

Didnt know about this, and I have started to loathe Adobe due to their licensing model. I will check Photo out!

Fr0styMatt88 2y ago

I loved the Affinity Suite, but it’s such a shame that Linux isn’t supported or that it isn’t provided in a Wine-friendly distributable (a regular installer executable rather than a Windows App Store package).

xyst 2y ago

I would buy it just because it’s not Adobe.

neom 2y ago

Unrelated but have any of you web software folks tried the latest dreamweaver? I'm old af and I used to love DW in the 90s and actually it's part of why I even know how to code(ish), I used it to teach myself (god bless you kevin lynch)...! anyway, I saw they still update it so I downloaded it just to see what it's like..Seems like they've really developed it well into a front end focused IDE, I can't say if it's good or not, but just from clicking around it felt pretty good... Thought I'd mention it. :)

null0pointer 2y ago

I really like Affinity, especially their buy it once pricing model, and I use Affinity Photo for all my photo editing. However, I was very disappointed to learn they were recently acquired by Canva, a company that is blatantly following the VC growth playbook. So I fear that sooner or later Affinity will fall victim to enshittification. It will either become exactly like Adobe is today or it will be sacrificed on the altar of ROI.

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mahgnous 2y ago

[dead]

unixhero 2y ago

Is Affinity draw better than Krita???

TheMagicHorsey 2y ago

Coming from Adobe Lightroom, I found Affinity Photo to be unusable. But I eventually switched from shooting RAW to shooting JPG, and now I just use files straight out of my Fuji cameras. As a busy parent I can't be bothered to edit anymore. I just shoot and post or shoot and print.

abdusco 2y ago

Does Affinity Photo have photo library management support like Lightroom? e.g. pick/reject, tagging, rating etc.

simulo 2y ago
No, afaic it does not.